Blaze at First and Jackson Leaves Five Homeless

Firefighters were still battling a stubborn blaze that tore through an historic Jackson Street building Saturday morning, leaving five tenants homeless, officials said. 

The two-alarm fire, which started on the second floor of a standalone building at First and Jackson streets, was "contained and under control," according to fire officials, but the roof collapsed and the block was covered in a film of smoke. 

Five tenants, who lived in the building's two second-floor apartments, were evacuated shortly after the flames were reported, around 8 a.m. There were no injuries, although one woman was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. 

Margaret Pauta, 25, awoke to hear her neighbor pounding on the door, warning her to leave. She woke up a friend, who was sleeping on her couch, and said, "Melinda, we have to go." 

Wrapped in a blanket and shivering as she stood on the street watching the flames tear through the building, Pauta, who moved in last month, said she was happy to be alive, "but all of my belongings are gone." 

Pauta said her new roommate was planning to move in to the unoccupied second bedroom Saturday, and a U-haul truck was on its way. 

Firefighters said the cause of the fire was still unclear, but the building's landlord, Esmat Zaklama, who was at the scene, said a worker who was fixing a stove in Apartment 1, notified him that it began smoking shortly after he re-installed it. 

Zaklama, who has owned the building since 1990, said he had been involved in a court battle with the city to obtain a liquor license in order to reopen a restaurant —Hoboken staple Nardine's—on the first floor, which was currently empty. The building once housed Casella's Restaurant, the legendary Hudson County mob headquarters in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Zaklama tried to re-open Nardine's last June, but he said the city the city promptly shut it down after just one day for not having the necessary permits.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who was at the scene, along with Fourth Ward Councilman Tim Occhipinti, called the building "challenging," adding that the landlord had been issued several fines.

The American Red Cross was on its way to the scene to assist displaced tenants in finding shelter, Zimmer said. 

The area remained covered in smoke and First Street from Madison to Jackson streets were closed to traffic.